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Friday, 10 April 2020

April Snow

It happens some years. This is what I saw from my bedroom window this morning at about 6:45 when I pulled open the blind. The ol' white stuff on the car and the roof of the barn.

Just a light, gentle snowfall that melts as soon as it touches the ground. But it hasn't stopped all day (it's almost one o'clock now). April 10th is pretty late, but people hereabouts say snow in May isn't unheard of.

Cool. (Literally.)

Mike

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)Featured Comments from:

Jeff: "I remember my first year of grad school in the early '70s in Madison, Wisconsin, near your former stomping grounds (don’t know, however, if you actually ever stomped). It was this same time in April, and the warmish, sunny days suggested that Winter was gone and that stories of brutal Wisconsin weather were overblown. On April 15, it snowed 15 inches. I eventually moved years later after the wind chill once hit 63 below zero. Now back in the Mid-Atlantic, we barely got snow, or cold, this year. That’s OK with me, except that I miss the opportunities for B&W shooting in snow."

Kirk Tuck: "It was 92 degrees here yesterday and the humidity was 'rain forest' level. We were sweating just walking up to the mailbox. I'd love a bit of snow here in Austin. That would be...novel."

I remember April 10 as the date we had over 10" of wet snow (in CT - only a few hours east of you) that took down a big old apple tree in our front yard. The snow melted the next day leaving us with a mess to clean up. We had downpours yesterday (no thunder, but others around us heard it), light flurries this morning, but nonstop wind rattling the siding all day today (40 degrees feels like 30 according to the weather channel).

As quotidian and inconsequential as you might think these and yesterday's photos are, I consider them a welcome addition to your writing. They provide insight into life as you're living it and I, for one, would never expect you to post gallery-quality photos 365 days a year. (Not to imply that you're incapable of gallery-quality images, only that I don't expect you to have superhuman photography skills.)

No, it's not all that unusual. Local ROC weather/météo guy on TV today said latest day on record here is April 14 for snow that "sticks".

I'm always anxious to get stuff planted in the garden.It's a month or more too early for most things, but it's OK for lettuces, so I'll try to get some in this Sunday. Garlic is already up, two varieties of onions are in the ground, and leaks will be started inside. It's something I can do alone and not worry about distancing.

If you think that's snow, you should come to Colorado. We get plenty of snow in April every year. There are only a few tiny patches of snow left in my yard today, but the forecast is for several inches over the next few days. I have some pictures from last year showing more than a foot of fresh snow on the picnic table taken on May 21. That much snow in May is unusual, but a couple of inches of snow in May is not. I don't even live in the mountains where it can snow every month of the year.

Springtime snow at higher altitudes is not a surprise. However, serious snow in Indiana in May really caught me off guard many years ago.

I was in college about 60 miles from Indianapolis and several of us went down to watch the qualifying for the Indy 500. That evening we had choice of driving back to Purdue or camping on the family room floor of a Indianapolis classmate's home.

Fortunately we chose to drive back to school that night, as a blizzard came in and dumped so much snow that the Interstate Highway between Indianapolis and Chicago was closed. The snow melted within a day, but making it to classes on Monday would have been a challenge.

Back in the 70's I was working my way through college and worked in a grocery store. I volunteered to work on the 4th of July. Double time and a half around $6.00 an hour, ah the good old days. Anyway we got to work and it snowed about a quarter of an inch overnight.

Around mid day after the snow had melted except in the shadows, we had a couple stop into the store from Florida, driving across the country. The woman looked at me with a straight face and asked me why we had spread laundry detergent under the trees.

I have seen it snow in every month of the year when I was back there. Living at 7,165 ft. (2,184 m) you get to see a lot of snow. Time of the year is of little consequence.

And today, 11 April in Perth, Western Australia, we had 39.6degC (103.3F), the highest April temperature on record. The water from the cold tap is almost too hot to touch before it cools down. I'm still having the daily cold showers that I started in mid November last year. Lovely. Enjoy your snow.

Mike, in my 55 years in western NY State the latest snow I can recall was on Mother's Day, in about 1995. That's the second Sunday in May, and in Rochester, the biggest day of the Lilac Festival. There were a LOT of grumpy people in my hometown that weekend.
I do like to see pictures of what's happening in your part of the world- I was there (on family business) in early March and *everything* was gray. A book I was reading mentioned 'that nameless season between winter and spring' which I thought perfectly apt. Here in Tucson it's been a glorious spring- but of course the heat is coming.